Monday, December 25, 2006

A Pizza Bowl Without Pizza (and Beer)

Word comes to us that Saturday's Papajohns.com Bowl was missing a key ingredient. Namely pizza. Yes, all that planning to bring a postseason game back to Birmingham and the title sponsor was not able to sell its goods inside Legion Field. Turns out Papa John's and the vendor couldn't work out a deal before kickoff, so no pizza. Is this a great country or what? Our reaction to this would be to find a workaround, which is this case would mean delivery inside the stadium. But it turns out that Papa John's — along with Pizza Hut and Domino's — won't deliver to the rough and tumble Smithfield community that envelops Legion Field. Nobody will come out and directly say it, but word on the street is that safety is a factor. On top of this, Legion Field concession stands ran out of beer. "It was pretty sad," South Florida student Brynn McDowell told the Birmingham News. "We were in line 45 minutes and we were next when they ran out." Yes indeed, times are tough in Alabama. Even two Crimson Tide fans who were among the announced 32,023 at the Pizza Bowl couldn't entice the fat guy to make it down the chimney to deliver a coach. (Thanks to Drew for this gem of a photo.) And if all this wasn't bad enough, consider this: In an attempt to deceive viewers into thinking the crowd was bigger than it actually was, the majority of fans were seated on one side of the stadium facing the cameras. Like we said, is this a great country or what?